Compiled by Mark F. Hall, Digital Reference Specialist

World War II (1939-1945) was the largest international event
of the twentieth century and one of the major turning points
in U.S. and world history. In the six years between the invasion
of Poland and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world
was caught up in the most destructive war in history. Armed
forces of more than seventeen million fought on the land,
in the air, and on the sea. The digital collections of the
Library of Congress contain a wide and diverse selection of
materials relating to this period.

This guide gathers in one place links to World War II related
resources throughout the Library of Congress Web site.

Library of Congress Web Sites

This collection contains approximately twelve hours of
opinions recorded in the days and months following the
bombing of Pearl Harbor from interviews with more than
two hundred individuals in cities and towns across the
United States.

The images in the Farm Security Administration-Office
of War Information Collection are among the most famous
documentary photographs ever produced. Created by a group
of U.S. government photographers, the images show Americans
in every part of the nation. In its early years, the project
emphasized rural life and the negative impact of the Great
Depression, farm mechanization, and the Dust Bowl. In
later years, the photographers turned their attention
to the mobilization effort for World War II.

The Archive of Folk Culture mainly consists of the collections
of the American Folklife Center. Today the Archive includes
over three million photographs, manuscripts, audio recordings,
and moving images, consisting of documentation of traditional
culture from all around the world. It is America's first
national archive of traditional life, and one of the oldest
and largest of such repositories in the world.

This exhibition spotlights eight women who succeeded
in "coming to the front" during the war--Therese
Bonney, Toni Frissell, Marvin Breckinridge Patterson,
Clare Boothe Luce, Janet Flanner, Esther Bubley, Dorothea
Lange, and May Craig. Their stories--drawn from private
papers and photographs primarily in Library of Congress
collections--open a window on a generation of women who
changed American society forever by securing a place for
themselves in the workplace, in the newsroom, and on the
battlefield.

Sheridan Harvey (Women's Studies Specialist, Humanities
and Social Sciences Division, Library of Congress) explores
the evolution of "Rosie the Riveter"and discusses
the lives of real women workers in World War II.

The same images as presented on the Library of Congress
American Memory site. This site contains background information,
and a few selected images are included here as a quick
sample of the collection.

The photographs of the Farm Security Administration
(FSA)-Office of War Information (OWI), transferred to
the Library of Congress in 1944, form an extensive pictorial
record of American life between 1935 and 1943. As the
scope of the project expanded, the photographers turned
to recording rural and urban conditions throughout the
United States and mobilization efforts for World War II.

The Prints & Photographs Division holds hundreds
of images relating to American women workers in World
War II. These selected images were issued by the U.S.
government or by commercial sources during World War II,
often to encourage women to join the work force or to
highlight other aspects of the war effort.

On June 13, 1942, seven months after the bombing of Pearl
Harbor, the Office of War Information (OWI) was created.
An important U.S. government propaganda agency during
World War II, the OWI supported American mobilization
for the war effort by recording the nation's activities.

On August 13, 1942, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin drafted
a memorandum to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
and American President Franklin Roosevelt opposing their
decision not to invade Western Europe at that time.

In 1942, John F. Kennedy entered the United States Navy
to join American forces fighting in World War II. Prior
to his departure, playwright Clare Boothe Luce, a close
friend of the Kennedy family, sent the young naval officer
a good luck coin that once belonged to her mother. On
September 29, 1942, Kennedy wrote to Luce thanking her
for sharing such an important token with him.

The United Nations was established by charter on October
24, 1945. Initially, the United Nations included only
the twenty-six countries that had signed the 1942 Declaration
by United Nations, a statement of war against the Axis
powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) in World War II.

Rick's Place: World War II military code for the city
of Casablanca. The film Casablanca
premiered in New York City on November 26, 1942,
as Allied Expeditionary Forces (AEF) secured their hold
on North Africa during World War II.

ExternalWeb Sites

Dedicated in 2000 as The National D-Day Museum and now
designated by Congress as the country's official World
War II Museum, this remarkable attraction illuminates
the American experience during the WWII era with moving
personal stories, historic artifacts and powerful interactive
displays.